#620 by installs
Async JavaScript
Async Javascript lets you add 'async' or 'defer' attribute to scripts to exclude to help increase the performance of your WordPress website.
- Installs
- 60,000+
- Rating
- 4.7 (102)
- Updated
- 3 years ago
Speculative Loading
Enables browsers to speculatively prerender or prefetch pages to achieve near-instant loads based on user interaction.
- Active installs
- 70,000+
- #614 of 1,000
- Downloads, all time
- 515.1K
- 515,098
- Downloads, 30 days
- 14.3K
- 3.4K in the last 7
- Rating
- 5.0 / 5
- 18 reviews
- Last updated
- 2 months ago
- Aug 26, 2026
- Version
- 1.7.0
- 13 releases
Upkeep and compatibility
| Last updated | August 26, 2026Updated in the last 3 months |
|---|---|
| Tested up to | WordPress 7.1.4Covers WordPress 7.1.4, the current release |
| Needs WordPress | 6.9 or newer |
| Needs PHP | 7.4 or newer |
| First published | January 19, 2024 |
| Support, last two months | 1 of 1 threads resolved (100%) |
Reviews
5.0 / 5 from 18 reviews
| 5 stars | 18 |
|---|---|
| 4 stars | 0 |
| 3 stars | 0 |
| 2 stars | 0 |
| 1 star | 0 |
Downloads, last 30 days
What the author says it does
This plugin adds support for the Speculation Rules API, which allows defining rules by which certain URLs are dynamically prefetched or prerendered. This core Speculative Loading functionality was merged into WordPress 6.8, but it only prefetches with conservative eagerness by default. In contrast, this plugin defaults to prerendering with moderate eagerness (i.e. when interacting with a link), and it provides a user interface to customize the mode and eagerness via the “Speculative Loading” section on the Settings > Reading admin screen.
By default, speculative loading is only enabled for logged-out users, since unauthenticated pages are typically only eligible for caching and so more efficient to prefetch/prerender. This means that sites with frequent logged-in users on the frontend—such as e-commerce, forums, or membership sites—will not benefit from the feature. If your server can handle the additional load (for example, with persistent object caching), you can opt in to enable speculative loading for all logged-in users or for administrators only. This setting exclusively affects frontend pages; admin screens are always excluded.
The opening of the plugin's own description. The full text, installation notes and changelog are on its WordPress.org page.
Questions the author answers
How can I prevent certain URLs from being prefetched and prerendered?
Not every URL can be reasonably prerendered. Prerendering static content is typically reliable, however prerendering interactive content, such as a logout URL, can lead to issues. For this reason, certain WordPress core URLs such as /wp-login.php and /wp-admin/* are excluded from prefetching and prerendering.
Are there any special considerations for speculative loading behavior?
For safety reasons, the entire speculative loading feature is disabled by default for logged-in users and for sites that do not use pretty permalinks. The latter is the case because plugins often use URLs with custom query parameters to let users perform actions, and such URLs should not be speculatively loaded.
How will this impact analytics and personalization?
Prerendering can affect analytics and personalization.
For client-side JavaScript, is recommended to delay these until the prerender is activated (for example by clicking on the link). Some solutions (like Google Analytics) already do this automatically, see Impact on Analytics. Additionally, cross-origin iframes are not loaded until activation which can further avoid issues here.
Where can I submit my plugin feedback?
Feedback is encouraged and much appreciated, especially since this plugin may contain future WordPress core features. If you have suggestions or requests for new features, you can submit them as an issue in the WordPress Performance Team’s GitHub repository. If you need help with troubleshooting or have a question about the plugin, please create a new topic on our support forum.
Where can I report security bugs?
The Performance team and WordPress community take security bugs seriously. We appreciate your efforts to responsibly disclose your findings, and will make every effort to acknowledge your contributions.
To report a security issue, please visit the WordPress HackerOne program.
How can I contribute to the plugin?
Contributions are always welcome! Learn more about how to get involved in the Core Performance Team Handbook.
Latest changelog entry
Enhancements
- Add declare( strict_types = 1 ) to all PHP files. (2424)
- Bump minimum required WordPress version to 6.9. (2517)
- Bump minimum required PHP version from 7.2 to 7.4. (2469)
- Improve code quality with native property types and stricter static analysis. (1729)
- Harden the JSON encoding of the inline speculation rules script and add a sourceURL to the authentication admin notice script. (2169)
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Where this page's numbers come from
Read from the WordPress.org plugin API on , when WordPress 7.1.4 was the current release. WordPress.org rounds active installs into buckets. These are the directory's figures, not my verdict, and I haven't tested this plugin.